SECTION 3 - BOOTS ON THE GROUND
We've separated this scouting information into the following sections:
1) Off-season
2) In Season
OFF-SEASON SCOUTING
The off-season for most of us ranges from roughly February through September each year. That leaves a tremendous amount of time for scouting if you have the time to get out. We like to cover tons of ground during this time and explore bedding areas from the inside out. We are not concerned with leaving scent but try to limit the amount of times we scout an area. Ideally, we’ll scout a bedding area top to bottom in one trip and then won’t return until it’s time to hunt next Fall.
COMMON QUESTION: Are you afraid of spooking deer while scouting?
The answer is no. We dive straight in and blow everything out. Then we scout the bedding area and create a plan to hunt it. On several occasions we’ve scouted bedding areas like this on public land in August then returned in early October to hunt and saw mature bucks in the same bedding area. In our opinion, the trick is learning the area in 1 scouting trip. Avoid multiple trips into a bedding area once you’ve scouted it. Once you've scouted it leave it alone until the day you plan to hunt it. If you want more intel on it then observe it from a distance.
NOTE: Ticks are a very real threat during scouting season. Treat your clothing with permethrin to deter ticks during the warmer months. We use the Sawyers brand. Make sure to read and follow the directions so it is as effective as possible. You can purchase it at this link -click here.
Off-season is a great time to cruise around new areas and familiarize yourself with the road systems and access routes. Don’t underestimate this simple information. It’ll help when accessing areas in the dark for morning hunts during the Fall. If traveling out-of-state for a Fall trip, try to plan at least a day or two for scouting beforehand. It’ll save you valuable time when you take your vacation for the hunt. Maps can tell you a lot but we almost always get thrown a curve ball when arriving at a new area. Roads we thought were open are closed, creeks that are WAY deeper than we thought, clear cuts that weren’t there when aerial photos were taken etc.
Here are a few examples of scouting during the off-season. In both these videos, we find food sources to keep tabs on throughout the Fall.
IN SEASON SCOUTING
How do we approach scouting differently during hunting season vs. the off- season? During hunting season, we often have a tag in our pocket so scouting looks a bit different. Every time we hit the woods in the Fall we’re scouting. This includes checking for sign to and from the areas we’re hunting. Keep an eye out for HOT sign. Examples of hot sign is fresh tracks in the mud after a rain OR a rub with tree bark shavings laying on top of freshly fallen leaves in October.
DECIPHERING HOT SIGN
Hot Tracks:
If your area has a heavy rain event, go to the woods the following day and look for fresh tracks. You should be able to distinguish tracks left after the rain with those left beforehand. Those left earlier are now weathered and washed away.
Look at the amount of weathering on the track to determine roughly how old it is. Get down on your knees and look closely at tons of tracks. The hoof prints will be dug in sharper on new tracks. Also consider the surface where the impression was left. Flat clay soil will hold track impressions longer than a sandy creek bed.
Hot Scrapes:
These are especially important throughout hunting season. Look closely at the dirt in the scrape to see if the hoof marks are fresh or old. Look for weathering of the hoof marks. To get a feel for this, go out in your yard with a rake and find a bare spot of dirt. Scratch the dirt with a rake to create a “scrape” and take several photos of it. Come back a day later and DON’T touch the scrape but snap another picture. Repeat the process for the next 5-6 days then compare all the pictures. You’ll see how weathering affects the appearance of the sign. Small wet spots in the scrape could also be deer urine. This type of sign is piping hot. The liquid has not had time to evaporate or sink into the soil. Whichever deer urinated in the scrape was there a short time ago.
I've found some hot sign, now what?
There are several options at this point. This is the thought process we use so adapt your own strategy.
Think about the sign in relation to the bigger picture. How far is the nearest bedding area? What was the buck doing when he left that rub? Which direction was he traveling according to the tracks? Where do we expect he is coming from? Where is he going?
EXAMPLES
1) It’s around noon and we find a scrape with fresh urine and hoof marks in it very close to thick cover. We also see several fresh rubs leading back in towards the cover. This would lead us to believe that a buck is bedding in the thicket. If the scrape was within 150 yards of the best bedding cover in the thicket, we’d look for a place to set up nearby, potentially one that allows us a shot opportunity at the scrape. Since we found the sign at noon, we’d want to hunt it immediately that evening. Don’t wait to hunt HOT sign.
2) We’re walking the edge of a bean field next to open hardwoods and find a huge fresh scrape. There is fresh urine and hoof marks similar to the example above. However, the nearest bedding area is over 300 yards away from the scrape back in the timber. In fact, there are multiple bedding areas within 400 yards of the scrape. We’d hang a camera over the scrape and rarely hunt it. Here's why: it’s too far from the security cover of the bedding area to see a mature buck in daylight. This is not always the case but often we’d bypass this sign and head deeper into the area towards the thicker bedding cover. If we encounter HOT sign closer to one of the bedding areas, we’ll stop again and decide to set up or move further.
NOTE: Keep in mind that HOT sign doesn’t always mean TONS of sign. A single fresh buck track near bedding could be worth sitting over if it’s fresh and in a place where a buck feels secure. We’ve made the mistake of bypassing this type of sign before only to blow a big buck out of the bedding 70 yards away.
JUMPING BIG BUCKS IN SEASON
While scouting in season, it is very common to jump a buck out of his bedroom. This isn't something to to get frustrated about, it is going to happen. The best course of action is to ask why that buck was bedded there and try to learn something about it. Often that buck or another buck will be likely to return to that exact same bedding area, sometimes event he same day. It is also a great indicator that deer are in the general area. If there is a habitat or terrain features nearby that are similar or better to where you just jumped the buck, it can be a great clue to key in on that nearby bedding area.
SCOUTING TO AVOID PRESSURE
In season scouting is also essential to avoid hunting pressure. We spend tons of time cruising around during the season and checking parking lots or other access points for vehicles. If you’re on a week’s vacation trip and are having problems avoiding other hunters, take a morning and use the truck to scout for hunting pressure. It's hard to give up a morning of hunting but it might help you find a spot all to yourself. It stinks when you walk two miles in only to have another hunter pop up in a tree 50 yards from you.
TAKEAWAYS FROM UNEVENTFUL HUNTS
A majority of hunts are going to be unsuccessful. The important thing is always taking something away from each hunt that will up you odds for success on your next hunt. The most important questions you can ask yourself is why? Why are deer using that area? Why did I find sign there, and where do I think they are bedded. Why did that buck skirt around me instead of walking in range? It is also important to learn the landscape and be more prepared for your next hunt in that area.
USING TRAIL CAMERAS
Another common scouting question we get: Where do you put trail cameras?
They can be awesome tools for learning about whitetail behavior or targeting a specific buck. Trail cameras are also fun to check for tons of people so use them however you see fit. These are our opinions and we hope it provides insight as to how we use them, but they aren’t rules you need to follow.
1) SHORT TERM TRAIL CAMERA STRATEGY
Short term strategy means placing cameras in spots you don’t plan to hunt (unless the cameras tell you otherwise of course). Use them to monitor deer in the area and backtrack their movements to potential spots for a hunt. Most of the short term locations we select produce nighttime pictures. This does not mean the deer on the camera only move at night. It just means that by the time they walk in front of the camera it's dark.
We also set cameras up along field edges or areas where both deer and hunters travel to monitor hunting pressure in a spot. We always set these up near bedding areas we plan to hunt but not IN the bedding areas. This usually puts our short term cameras at least 300 yards away. We want to stay out of the spots where bucks live during the day until it’s time to sneak in and hunt one.
These types of trail cam setups are also moved around throughout the season.
EXAMPLE: We’re scouting our way through a public area and find a trail intersection near a destination food source. The nearest bedding cover is several hundred yards away and most of the deer movement across the trails is at night. However, one of the trails leads back to a bedding area we hope to hunt. Do you place a camera here and how often should it be checked? The answer for us is, yes. We’d run a camera over the trails on a short term schedule planning to check it once every 2 weeks (roughly). Most movement will be a night but the hope is to photograph a buck using a trail that leads back to a targeted bedding area. Since the deer are moving through this area at night and we don't plan to hunt this exact spot we don’t worry about scent in these locations and check the cameras regularly. Often, we’ve checked cameras in similar situations to get pictures of mature bucks coming through 3 hours after dark and been able to backtrack them to a bedding area the same day we checked the camera. We’ll rarely check game cameras on days we can’t hunt. You want to be able to capitalize on recent movement if the opportunity arises. If the camera photographed a buck heading back into a bedding area THAT morning you want to be able to hunt him while he’s there. Far too often, hunters will get this type of intel and wait to hunt. This can still be productive but we like to strike while the iron is hot.
2) LONG TERM TRAIL CAMERA STRATEGY
How long do we leave trail cameras out? Sometimes the answer is the entire season. These camera setups are less common but can yield an immense amount of intel.
If we’re scouting a bedding area in July or August and come across a community scrape, sign post rub or major trail intersection in the bedding area we’ll often set a camera up with the intent of leaving it up the entire Fall. We’ll check these in December, January, or February after the season has ended since we don’t want to intrude into the middle of these bedding areas often. It’s possible we’ll hunt the area during the Fall where we could check it. However, we find dozens of these spots every year and it’s impossible to hunt all of them so while we’re bouncing around trying to find the hot action in season, our long term trail cameras are sitting in the middle of the bedding area gathering intel.
It’s interesting to see the progression of behavior on these cameras left throughout the Fall. This type of long form data helps us determine when to hunt these areas in future years.
Sometimes they can help pattern a specific buck. Mature bucks will repeat patterns often from year to year. It’s heavily dependent on the situation but something we’ve seen repeatedly. Long term cameras can give you a head start on the next season.
Long term set ups are great for learning about deer behavior as well. For example, several years ago we noticed fresh deer tracks under a locust tree in Winter. Deer had been feeding on the locust pods under the tree but we didn’t know when and how consistently. We decided to place a long term camera setup over trails passing the locust tree. We left the camera for roughly three months from late Fall to early Spring. After investigating the photos, it was apparent that the deer fed heavily on the locust pods with snow on the ground and their activity peaked in the middle of Winter. Activity was lower in late Fall when we deployed the camera and dropped off completely by March. What did we learn? Deer in this area utilized the locust pods as a main food source during the winter months, especially after a snow. Now we have an observed pattern to use to our advantage in that area moving forward.
BEST PRACTICES FOR KEEPING YOUR CAMERAS SAFE
Theft is a major issue with trail cams on public land. To deter thieves, we try to elevate the cameras roughly 8-10 feet off the ground. We use a climbing stick to set them up then lock them to the tree using a python cable lock and pull the stick when we leave. This keeps cameras out of reach for anyone walking by and out of their immediate line of sight. Make sure the camera is fastened tight to the tree. Raccoons, wind, and even birds can bump the camera so make sure it’s solid. You’ll also want to avoid placing it in a spot where the limbs or leaves are close to the lens. When these blow in the wind, it causes false triggers and fills up your cameras memory quickly and also makes photos a pain to sort through. Develop an organized system for your camera locations and lock keys. We use a small tackle box with dividers and a label maker to store the keys. We also mark every camera’s location on OnX along with setup notes such as the number of climbing sticks needed to reach the camera and date it was placed.
